Some Serenity
by Sarah Kennedy
Summary: Spike finds his way onto Serenity, and finds some serenity of his own with the help of one of her crew.
1. Serenity

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Characters and other stuff belong to Joss Whedon.

* * *

Spike turned and stabbed out his cigarette against the corrugated iron roof he was sitting on. He could hear it creaking unsteadily under his weight; he didn't care, the roof had held up over the last few years and he'd be damned if it was going to fall in tonight. Normally at this time he'd be sleeping, tucked away from the night like everyone else on this stinking world. But not tonight. Or the last couple of weeks, for that matter.

The nightmares were coming again.

He'd thought he'd kicked them after he'd come to this planet, after leaving Seriphos – or had it been Seriamus? He couldn't remember. He only remembered the dark, pain-lanced dreams that had stalked him throughout his inhabitance there. He'd seen things that hurt and horrified him until he reached the point where he feared sleep more than anything.

And they were coming back now.

The worn leather of his jacket rustled as he leapt to the ground, landing silently, clouds of dust drifting up around his boots. The streets faded away beneath his feet as he passed between the shacks, heading towards the docklands. There was guaranteed to be some poor unfortunate hanging around, some drifter who wouldn't be missed. He wasn't really hungry, to be honest; it was something to do to keep his mind off the dreams. It was ironic, Spike thought, that as soon as you had an all-controlling dictatorship government, people went missing with even less fuss than they had before. He'd been wandering between the planets for hundreds of years now, and had never once been looked at sideways by the feds.

Well, they weren't exactly savvy over the whole 'creatures of the night' thing. Vampires, monsters, demons; somewhere along the way they'd all passed under the Alliance's radar. Spike hadn't even heard of a Slayer within the last two centuries or so. Even given the population of galactic humanity, one hundred billion or more, there should have been some whisper, some rumour, some suspiciously safe corner of the Alliance that would sing of a Slayer's presence. But there was nothing. And it made Spike edgy. The Slayer line couldn't just disappear like that, especially since there'd been over a hundred of them at one point. Long time ago. But somehow it had, and it seemed to have taken the rest of the demon world with it.

He slipped between two buildings and emerged before one of the docked ships. It wasn't particular in any way, nothing remarkable about it called to him. Yet he paused before it and looked over it again. The gorgeous bird sitting on the ramp had a lot to do with his decision to give it more than a cursory glance.

"You heading out?" she called to him. Her voice was beautiful in its roughness – maybe not so much rough as unpolished.

"Depends," he replied, strolling over, hands shoved deep in his pockets. "Where you goin'?"

"Athena. Direct run. Lovely place, Athena; they've got this fantastic little restaurant outside Aeros City where you can get these…"

"Yeah, alright pet," Spike said, holding out a hand in greeting. It was an easy choice. He'd stayed too long on this dump anyway. A few years in one place was the limit he could take. And he was getting uncomfortable, hanging around here all the time. Maybe a change of planet would do him some good. Chase the nightmares away once more. "Name's Spike."

"I'm Kaylee. And this is my girl Serenity." She gestured to the ship behind her.

"Serenity," Spike repeated, shaking his head. "I could use some of that about now."

TBC


	2. Broken

"Don' like the look of him," Jayne growled.

"He's a paying fella who keeps himself to himself," said Mal. "S'long as he keeps doing that – specially the paying part – I ain't holding nothing against him."

The object of their conversation could hear every word, and Spike was unsurprised at their uneasiness. People always had doubts about him; even in this time when vampires had passed from stories, to legends, to nothing, some residual fear lingered in their makeup. But he ignored them, and continued to do nothing, lurking in his cabin. The other voices of the Serenity crew floated through to him, picked up by his vampire senses; pretty Kaylee and absolutely stunning Inara discussing their destination, Athena – Simon swearing softly as he looked for something in the medical bay – and River's voice, suddenly all too clear, saying:

"You hide a lot."

He turned around to see her standing in the doorway, staring idly at the ceiling.

"'m not hiding, but. 'm just not out there with the others." Spike waved his hand to invite her in. She drifted forwards and twirled as she gained enough room to manoeuvre, a cloud of brown hair flying out around her. River unnerved him more than he cared to admit. In too many ways, she reminded him of Drusilla.

"Missing the raven," she crooned, stopping beside him and looking down into his eyes. "Dark raven, shadow still hanging over you."

Spike's head shot up in alarm. "How d'you know that?"

"I see things," she said idly. "I think I'm kind of broken."

"You an' me both, kid." Spike heaved a sigh and leant back against the wall. To his surprise, River sat down beside him and wiggled into his side.

"All gone now," she said softly. "The raven… the dove too."

Spike sprang up and stood before her, glaring down. "And what exactly do you mean by that?" The veiled reference to Buffy – it had to be Buffy – had him burning more than he knew. More than he had for hundreds of years. He'd buried away thoughts of her, hidden them from himself for centuries, and then to have them brought out so abruptly, so without ceremony, by some girl who had no idea of what she'd meant to him –

"I do know, Spike," said River. "I can see it in your head. She sings even when you don't think she does, she's always there."

He was unable to speak for a long minute. All he could think about was Buffy; all the memories he'd locked away to tightly flooding out and drowning him. And God, he didn't want to be saved. He just wanted to see her, have her back; just pretend even for an instant she was in the room with him.

_Buffy… _

"Stop it," he finally croaked. "I don't know what you are, or what you're doin', but stop."

"I can't stop," she breathed. "I can't help it. It's what I am. It's what I was made. Just like you were."

"Like I was…"

"Made. Sired. A vampire."

The universe froze, and shuddered, and breathed again to hear that long-forgotten word spoken. Everything of the demon word, everything they'd meant, everything they'd done, had been lost.

Until River.

Until maddening, crazy, tiny little River just looked at him and opened up volumes of memories and knowledge held only by Spike.

"I've always known," she said conversationally, as though discussing the weather, and not rewiring the entire universe. "I've always been able to hear the different voices. The cold ones. The stone ones. The _dead _ones."

"That suits me fairly well, I must say," he muttered, staring at his hands for lack of anything else to do. Everything had completely flipped around and recreated itself, and he was still stuck on Buffy. His dove, as River had put it when she tore everything down so innocently. "So what's that make you, then?"

"I think I'm an eagle," she said. "I'm vicious and hurtful and I hunt, because it's my nature. Because I was made that way. Because I have to."

"Join the club, kid," Spike mumbled, dropping to the floor in front of her, still seated on the bed.

"Okay," she said.

"What? Kid, that's a figure of-"

"I'm not your dove, Spike, and I never will be. Nobody ever will be what she was. I'm not even your raven. But I want to make it better. I want to help you."

Help… God, he hadn't even known he'd needed help until River said he did. Hadn't known how broken he already was before River broke him some more, ripping open old wounds to make them heal properly. Bringing her – bringing _Buffy _– out into the open so casually, like it was nothing.

And, Spike supposed, it should be.

Hell, the girl had died centuries ago, and she'd never come back to him the way he'd hoped (but never really believed) she would. She'd never affirmed her love for him after that night in the cave, his soul pouring out of him, dying to save the world. Dying to save _her_.

She was gone now. _Gone_. Really and truly, in the most permanent sense of the word, gone. Dead. Deceased. Passed on. A normal death for the least normal girl the world had ever seen. But she'd never passed on for him. She'd always followed him, everywhere he went, in everything he did; she was always there. She never gave up, never quit, never went away. She was still real to him.

But she shouldn't be. Buffy was dead. It was time to accept that and let her be dead. And while the mere notion had him wanting to scream and tear the thought right out of his traitorous skull, he had to admit it was what he needed. What _she _needed. She'd earned her peace and more besides, and Spike had too.

It was easy, in the end, after countless years hanging on to her memory, to let her go. To stop carrying her around like some monument to his screwed-up relationship with her. To simply pause, and let her drift off into wherever it was painful memories went when they weren't painful anymore. To get over her. He wasn't forgetting her; the memories weren't all flying out of his head with nothing left behind. He was lowering the barriers he'd constructed around them, letting them finally be free. Letting them fit themselves into a normal niche, just another part of his life. An important part, a life-changing part, but not one he would be constantly hung up over. Buffy wasn't locked away anymore. She was, finally, at peace.

Spike jerked up and looked around, half-surprised to find himself still in the tiny cabin on Serenity. He'd been so lost in the memories of Buffy – and the releasing of the memories of Buffy – that he hadn't known where he was. River was looking up at him like he was the crazy one, and not her.

"That was a very weird thing, that you did there," she told him, sounding like a parent to a child. "And brave. That's nice."

"Yeah, thanks a bunch, kid." He paused, and decided she deserved more sincerity than that. "No, really. Whatever you did, what you said before… it helped. Really." A smile crooked his lips as he used her metaphor. "The dove's out of her cage."

River smiled and stood up, twirling around the cabin again. "I didn't do anything, Spike. It was all you. It all came from you. I was never here," she added, before drifting away through the still-open door. Spike shook his head as she passed from his sight. That was one crazy girl, he had to admit. But she'd helped him, just as she'd promised to. She'd fixed him in places he didn't even know needed fixing. She'd helped him get over Buffy.

Now _that _just didn't sound right. _Oh yeah, I met this girl and got over my old ex…_ Did not fly with him. But Buffy could rest now. Whatever else happened, Buffy could rest.

And so could he.


	3. Epilogue

Spike made an excuse to refrain from disembarking until nightfall, at which time he made his way down to the cargo bay to say goodbye. There wasn't much to be said; he'd pretty much ignored everybody after the total reformation of his universe (reformations had a way of making you a social outcast, he'd noticed when he'd fallen in love with Buffy in the first place). His boots rang out loudly on the metal deck plating, reverberating off the walls and bouncing across again. Kaylee smiled at him as he paused beside her, offering his hand in farewell.

"What you said when you came on board… that you could use some serenity…" She hesitated, looking up as if seeking permission to continue. "Did you find it?"

Spike turned, gaze flicking up to the gantry, where River stood smiling at him.

"Yeah," he said. "I think I did."


End file.
